Cum proxime

Last updated

Pope Pius XI instituted a new rule for setting the date for the start of a papal conclave to elect a new pope by promulgating the document Cum proxime on 1 March 1922, less than a month after his own election. The four non-European cardinals had not participated in the conclave that elected him in February. Three of them arrived too late and one did not attempt the journey. With Cum proxime, Pius XI extended the time between the death of a pope and the start of the conclave to increase the likelihood that cardinals from distant locations could reach Rome in time to participate.

Like other documents issued on the pope's own authority, that is, a motu proprio , it is known by the opening words of its original Latin text. Pius begins by saying that he has been considering the conclave that elected him, and his opening words "Cum proxime" mean roughly since the recent.

Background

Traveling to attend at a conclave had long posed a challenge to cardinals outside of Italy. On occasion the cardinals based in or near Rome entered a conclave hoping to elect a pope before all their colleagues joined them.[ citation needed ] Wartime constraints allowed only 34 of 45 cardinals to attend the conclave of 1799-1800 in Venice. Despite dramatic improvements in transportation in the 19th century, the appointment of cardinals outside Europe presented a new challenge. In 1878 Cardinal John McCloskey arrived from New York five days after the start of the conclave, three days after it concluded. [1] [lower-alpha 1] In 1903 Cardinal James Gibbons of Baltimore was able to attend only because the death of Pope Leo XIII was long anticipated. [3] [lower-alpha 2] That same year Cardinal Patrick Francis Moran of Sydney left Australia on 9 July [4] and was not expected to reach Rome until August 20. [5] In 1914, when the conclave began on 31 August, Cardinals Gibbons of Baltimore and William O'Connell of Boston were not expected to arrive in Rome before 1 November [6] and Cardinal Louis-Nazaire Bégin of Quebec even later. [7] In 1922, Cardinal Joaquim Arcoverde de Albuquerque Cavalcanti of Rio de Janeiro knew he could not reach Rome in time for the conclave and did not attempt the journey. The other three non-European cardinals–again O'Connell and Bégin as in 1914, as well as Denis Dougherty of Philadelphia–did not arrive in time to participate in the conclave. O'Connell arrived at the Vatican on 6 February "at the moment the new Pope was blessing the multitude". [8] [lower-alpha 3] Cardinals Dougherty and Bégin never expected to arrive in time, [10] learned the outcome of the conclave while still at sea, [8] and reached Rome on 9 February. [11]

In 1922, the College of Cardinals debated whether to start the conclave as required after allowing ten days to elapse after the death of Benedict XV. Two-thirds of the non-Italian cardinals and some of the Italians wanted to delay the start until at least one of the Americans arrived. Cardinal János Csernoch of Hungary told the other cardinals that "America is a vital part of the Church. It will be calamitous to deny her participation in the election of the Pontiff. It will have a grave reaction among the American people; it will wound their pride and dignity." Cardinal Friedrich Gustav Piffl opposed proceeding without the Americans "for the sake of a technicality". [11] [lower-alpha 4]

Cum proxime

Immediately following the conclave, the dispute about delaying the conclave to await the arrival of the Americans continued. On 8 February, four French cardinals, Louis Luçon of Rheims, Louis-Ernest Dubois of Paris, Pierre Andrieu of Bordeaux, and Louis-Joseph Maurin of Lyon, asked for changes to church law to allow for an indefinite delay to ensure participation by cardinals from North and South America. And Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, who had led the Italians in opposition to a delay, expressed support for some modification of the schedule. [11]

On 28 February Pope Pius met with Cardinal O'Connell and said: "There will be no more racing 5,000 miles in a vain endeavor to reach Rome in time for a Conclave. The United States is too important to be ignored as she has been. I shall see to it that what happened at the last Conclave shall not occur again." [14]

Pius XI issued new regulations in Cum proxime on 1 March 1922. He noted the experience of the conclave that elected him and that cardinals had requested modifications. In place of a fixed interval of ten days following the day the papacy becomes vacant, he set the start of the conclave at ten to fifteen days from the death of the pope and allowed the College of Cardinals, meeting in general congregation, to extend that to as long as eighteen days. [9] [15]

Later experience

When the next papal conclave took place in 1939, the College of Cardinals waited the maximum eighteen days [16] and all 62 cardinals attended, including six from the Western Hemisphere. [17] By the next conclave in 1958, the speed of travel matched the internationalization of the College. As one newspaper put it, "the Archbishop of New York can reach Rome today faster than the Archbishop of Palermo did a generation ago". [18] Nevertheless, in 1975 Pope Paul VI allowed the College to extend the interval to as long as twenty days. [19]

See also

Notes

  1. McCloskey sailed from New York on 9 February [2] and reached Rome on 23 February. [1]
  2. He left from New York on 9 July [4] and arrived so early that he remained in France waiting for Leo to die. [3]
  3. One observer, unidentified by the historian who provides his view, thought O'Connell "intentionally selected slow transport" to underscore both the need for more time and the importance of the U.S. to the Church. [9]
  4. The 53 cardinals who entered the conclave on 2 February, the eleventh day following the death of Benedict XV as required, were 31 Italians, five French, four Spanish, three German, 3 British, 2 Polish, 2 Austrian, one Hungarian, one Belgian and one Dutch. [12] [13]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pope Pius IX</span> Head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878

Pope Pius IX was head of the Catholic Church from 1846 to 1878, the longest verified papal reign. He was notable for convoking the First Vatican Council in 1868 and for permanently losing control of the Papal States in 1870 to the Kingdom of Italy. Thereafter, he refused to leave Vatican City, declaring himself a "prisoner in the Vatican".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pope Pius XI</span> Head of the Catholic Church from 1922 to 1939

Pope Pius XI, born Ambrogio Damiano Achille Ratti (Italian: 

Papabile (, alsoUK: , Italian: 

<span class="mw-page-title-main">College of Cardinals</span> Body of all cardinals of the Catholic Church

The College of Cardinals, or more formally the Sacred College of Cardinals, is the body of all cardinals of the Catholic Church. As of 26 August 2023, there are 221 cardinals, of whom 120 are eligible to vote in a conclave to elect a new pope. Cardinals are appointed by the pope for life. Changes in life expectancy partly account for historical increases in the size of the college.

Sede vacante is a term for the state of a diocese while without a bishop. In the canon law of the Catholic Church, the term is used to refer to the vacancy of the bishop's or Pope's authority upon his death or resignation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Papal conclave</span> Election of the pope

A papal conclave is a gathering of the College of Cardinals convened to elect a bishop of Rome, also known as the pope. Catholics consider the pope to be the apostolic successor of Saint Peter and the earthly head of the Catholic Church.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1903 papal conclave</span>

The papal conclave held from 31 July to 4 August 1903 saw the election of Cardinal Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto to become pope in succession to Leo XIII, who had died on 20 July after a 25-year-long pontificate. Some 62 cardinals participated in the balloting. Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria asserted the right claimed by certain Catholic rulers to veto a candidate for the papacy, blocking the election of the leading candidate, Cardinal Secretary of State Mariano Rampolla. Sarto was elected on the seventh ballot and took the name Pius X.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1914 papal conclave</span>

A papal conclave was held from 31 August to 3 September 1914 which elected Giacomo della Chiesa to succeed Pius X, who died on August 20, as pope. Della Chiesa, hitherto the archbishop of Bologna, took the name Benedict XV.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1963 papal conclave</span> 1963 conclave following the death of Pope John XXIII; Paul VI elected to the papacy

A papal conclave was held from 19 to 21 June 1963 to elect a successor of John XXIII, who had died on 3 June 1963. The cardinal electors assembled in Rome and, after six ballots, elected Cardinal Giovanni Battista Montini, Archbishop of Milan. He accepted the election and took the name Paul VI. Paul VI's coronation on 30 June was the last papal coronation to date.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1958 papal conclave</span>

A papal conclave took place from 25 to 28 October following the death of Pope Pius XII on 9 October 1958. On the eleventh ballot, the College of Cardinals elected Cardinal Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli as the new pope. He accepted the election and took the name John XXIII. He was the second patriarch of Venice to be elected pontiff in the 20th century after Pius X.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1922 papal conclave</span>

The papal conclave held from 2 to 6 February 1922 saw Cardinal Achille Ratti elected to succeed Benedict XV, who had died on 22 January 1922. It took fourteen ballots for the 53 of the 60 cardinals assembled in the Sistine Chapel to elect a new pope. Ratti took the name Pius XI and immediately revived the traditional public blessing from the balcony, Urbi et Orbi, which his predecessors had eschewed since the loss of Rome to the Italian state in 1870.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1878 papal conclave</span> Conclave

The papal conclave held from 18 to 20 February 1878 saw the election of Vincenzo Pecci, who took the name Leo XIII as pope. Held after the death of Pius IX, who had had the longest pontificate since Saint Peter, it was the first election of a pope who would not rule the Papal States. It was the first to meet in the Apostolic Palace in the Vatican because the venue used earlier in the 19th century, the Quirinal Palace, was now the palace of the king of Italy, Umberto I.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vincenzo Vannutelli</span> Italian prelate

Vincenzo Vannutelli was an Italian prelate of the Roman Catholic Church. He spent his career in the foreign service of the Holy See and was made a cardinal in 1890.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1939 papal conclave</span> 1939 process for electing a new pope

The papal conclave held on 1 and 2 March 1939 saw Cardinal Eugenio Pacelli elected on the third ballot to succeed Pius XI, who had died on 10 February, as pope. All 62 cardinals took part. Pacelli, who had been camerlengo and secretary of state, took the name Pius XII. The day was his 63rd birthday.

Jus exclusivae was the right claimed by several Catholic monarchs of Europe to veto a candidate for the papacy. Although never formally recognized by the Catholic Church, the monarchs of France, Spain and Austria claimed this right at various times, making known to a papal conclave, through a crown-cardinal, that the monarch deemed a particular candidate for the papacy objectionable.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gaetano Bisleti</span>

Gaetano Bisleti S.T.D. was a Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church and was former Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for Catholic Education.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cardinal electors for the 1922 papal conclave</span>

The 53 cardinal electors in the 1922 papal conclave are listed by region, and within each alphabetically by country. Seven out of the sixty electors did not participate, three for reasons of health: José María Martín de Herrera y de la Iglesia, Giuseppe Antonio Ermenegildo Prisco, and Lev Skrbenský z Hříště. Joaquim Arcoverde de Albuquerque Cavalcanti of São Sebastião do Rio de Janeiro knew he could not reach Rome in time for the conclave and did not attempt the journey. The other three non-European cardinals–William Henry O'Connell of Boston, Denis Dougherty of Philadelphia, and Louis-Nazaire Bégin of Québec City–did not arrive in time to participate in the conclave. Within a month of his election, Pope Pius XI lengthened the waiting period before the start of a papal conclave to allow cardinals from distant places to participate in the balloting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Giovanni Cagliero</span>

Giovanni Cagliero SDB was an Italian prelate of the Catholic Church who worked as a missionary in South America and served as Apostolic Delegate to Costa Rica, Honduras, and Nicaragua from 1908 to 1915 when he was elevated to the rank of cardinal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louis Billot</span> French Catholic cardinal (1846–1931)

Louis Billot was a French Jesuit priest and theologian. He became a cardinal in 1911 and resigned from that status in 1927, the only person to do so in the twentieth century. While largely unknown in the modern age, he was nonetheless considered "the most important Thomistic speculative theologian of the late nineteenth century."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cardinals created by Pius XII</span>

Pope Pius XII created 56 cardinals in two consistories. On both occasions Pius tried to bring the membership of the College of Cardinals to 70, the maximum established by Pope Sixtus V in 1586. The death of one cardinal meant his first consistory brought the College to 69 members, but his second consistory, through the prompt addition of another name after a cardinal-designate died, brought the number of cardinals to 70.

References

  1. 1 2 "Miscellaneous Foreign Notes" (PDF). The New York Times . 24 February 1878. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  2. "Departure of Cardinal M'Closkey" (PDF). The New York Times . 10 February 1878. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  3. 1 2 "Conclave of Cardinals to Meet August 1" (PDF). The New York Times . 22 July 1903. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  4. 1 2 "The Expected Conclave" (PDF). The New York Times . 10 July 1903. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  5. "Sixty-Two Cardinals in Rome for Conclave" (PDF). The New York Times . 30 July 1903. Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  6. Chadwick, Owen (1998). A History of the Popes, 1830-1914. Oxford University Press. p. 336. ISBN   978-0-19-926286-1 . Retrieved 13 November 2017.
  7. Burkle-Young, Francis A. (2000). Papal Elections in the Age of Transition, 1878-1922. Lexington Books. p. 103. ISBN   9780739101148 . Retrieved 15 November 2017.
  8. 1 2 "Cardinal Ratti New Pope as Pius XI" (PDF). The New York Times . 7 February 1922. Retrieved 1 November 2017.
  9. 1 2 Trythall, Marisa Patrulli (2010). "Pius XI and American Pragmatism". In Gallagher, Charles R.; Kertzer, David I.; Melloni, Alberto (eds.). Pius XI and America: Proceedings of the Brown University Conference. Lit Verlag. p. 28. ISBN   9783643901460.
  10. "Two Cardinals Sail" (PDF). The New York Times . 29 January 1922. Retrieved 1 November 2017.
  11. 1 2 3 "Italians Opposed Delaying Conclave" (PDF). The New York Times . Associated Press. 10 February 1922. Retrieved 1 November 2017.
  12. Aradi, Zsolt (1958). Pius XI: The Pope and the Man. New York: Hanover House. ISBN   9781787205000 . Retrieved 13 November 2017.[ page needed ] Republished by Muriwai Books, 2017. Aradi counts one Italian too many and misses the Portuguese cardinal. He counts the Austrian serving as nuncio to Bavaria as Germany rather than Austrian.
  13. Burkle-Young, Francis A. (2000). Papal Elections in the Age of Transition, 1878-1922. Lexington Books.[ page needed ]
  14. "Pontiff Says Conclave Must Wait for U.S." (PDF). The New York Times . 1 March 1922. Retrieved 1 November 2017.
  15. Pope Pius XI (1 March 1922). "Cum proxime" (in Italian). Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Retrieved 1 November 2017.
  16. "Conclave to Elect Pope is Postponed to March 1" (PDF). The New York Times . 11 February 1939. Retrieved 14 November 2017.
  17. "Vatican Door Shut on 62 Cardinals as Conclave Opens to Elect Pope" (PDF). The New York Times . 2 March 1939. Retrieved 14 November 2017.
  18. "As the Catholic Church Prepares to Choose a New Leader" (PDF). The New York Times . 12 October 1958. Retrieved 6 November 2017.
  19. Pham, John-Peter (2004). Heirs of the Fisherman: Behind the Scenes of Papal Death and Succession . Oxford University Press. ISBN   9780199334827.[ page needed ]